Recommended HBA for ZFS, contemporary

[Karl Denninger]

On 8/22/2016 13:51, Charles Sprickman wrote:
>> On Aug 22, 2016, at 2:45 PM, Karl Denninger <karl at denninger.net> wrote:
>>
>> On 8/22/2016 13:38, Mike wrote:
>>> On 8/22/2016 2:36 PM, Karl Denninger wrote:
>>>> On 8/22/2016 13:34, Mike wrote:
>>>>> On 8/22/2016 12:18 PM, Ben RUBSON wrote:
>>>>>>> On 22 Aug 2016, at 18:14, InterNetX - Juergen Gotteswinter <juergen.gotteswinter at internetx.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> LSI SAS 2008 Based HBA, there are dozens of OEM available for Budget Prices
>>>>>> With the IT firmware.
>>>>> What's the significance of "IT firmware"?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> It's (slightly) faster, provided you don't turn on any of the other
>>>> stuff (which is always dumb with these adapters.)
>>> Does it come with the HBA board(s), needs to be purchased or downloaded
>>> separately?
>> I've never gotten a card with it on it; I've always had to flash it.
>> Flashing these cards is a bit of a highwire act and can brick them, but
>> I've never had it happen myself.  With that said my real reason to flash
>> all of mine is to have all of them on the same firmware just so I can
>> eliminate that as a possible contributor to problems if one starts
>> acting up and the others are not.  It's more of a "good practice" thing
>> than a need IMHO; it's not a lot of fun to try to run down a problem
>> only to find out after much hair has been pulled out of one's own head
>> that the problem is bad firmware on a board!
>>> Total noob here who wants to move my ZFS server disks off the
>>> motherboard SATA ports.  :)
>>>
> This is all a bit crazy.  Is the LSI series of HBAs really the only choice
> outside of onboard controllers?  It seems like they are troublesome, support
> is spotty, and this whole flashing process gives me nightmares.
They're not troublesome and I've got a LOT of them in production service
with zero field failures.

The flashing thing is a one-time deal; the IT firmware isn't really
required, but it will keep you from considering doing something stupid
at some point in the future (since the "stupid" features aren't in the
IT firmware!)
> Also personally, with the few boards I’ve seen with built-in LSI adapters
> have always been a little wonky compared to their non-LSI counterparts.
>
> Is this all just the end-result of LSI basically buying up everyone?
>
> Charles
These are one of those "they made a good one, and nobody's made a better
one" deals.

I have used other adapters (Adaptec, the PERC series, etc) but they have
all sucked to some degree.  The LSIs have been the one HBA that has
never made me want to do something evil to their engineers.

Just do it, get the right firmware on the card (once) and be happy.

-- 
Karl Denninger
karl at denninger.net <mailto:karl at denninger.net>
/The Market Ticker/
/[S/MIME encrypted email preferred]/
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